Ironband pre-release
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Re-branded
Changed the victory condition
Removed some monsters, objects and artifacts, added some more, changed others
Always ironman
No player ghosts
Only one class
Character starts at DL 1
Money gives XP
Shafts are not usually found, nor stairs up
Charisma replaced by four new stats - Agility, Stealth, Perception, Luck
Added new objects relating to the new stats
Changed some existing objects, egos and artifacts to affect the new stats
Added attack types to damage the new stats and gave these to some monsters
Stat generation must now be random roll (stats vary from 11 to 15)
Stats increase as you descend into the dungeon, and when you gain a level
Rebalanced races
Reading a scroll can now fail if Int is low
Lower maximum monster spell and breath damage
Changed some item frequencies, including removing some items
Saving throws can now never be perfect (though Wis helps more than it used to)
Confusion and paralysis locks are occasionally broken (more likely if Int and Agi, respectively, are high)
Stat drain can fail if stats are already low
Attacks that should have been fatal can now sometimes be survived (with luck)
Rings, amulets and light sources are auto-ID'd when wielded
Terrible items now appear special, cursed and broken egos now appear excellent, cursed items appear good (!)
Cursed items are now less common (especially if Luc is high)
Teleport spells, scrolls and staffs now have a short delay before they kick in (!)
More non-fueled light sources
More lit rooms
More food drops
Made the difficulty of the dungeon increase more rapidly over the first few levels
'O-lite' combat - melee weapon damage is multiplied by a factor based on criticals, to-dam, brands and slays
Fractional blows and shots
New melee blows formula - calculated from Dex only, except that blows are greatly reduced if weapon is too heavy
High Dex gives extra shots.
Stealthy characters get backstab bonuses (including damage plusses)
Various stat effect tables have changed (generally increasing the importance of the stat)
Innate melee to-dam is based on Str, melee to-hit on Dex, missile to-hit and to-dam on Per.
AC bonuses are based on Agi, as are avoiding theft and falling.
Agi also increases your speed.
Luc increases your chance of finding magic items.
Mana is more like HP, with a race-specific 'mana die' and bonuses based on Wis.
Jammed doors are not found on shallow levels.
Per improves your searching, infravision, pseudo-ID and light radius, and even provides limited ESP if high enough.
Added potions of Clarity and Dust of Disappearance
Mana is only regained on going down. (Potion of Restore Mana recovers 20% only.)
Mana drain is less effective and few monsters do it.
Getting poisoned makes your HP drop faster. On the other hand, poison breaths are less immediately damaging than previously.
'G' no longer does anything. 'z' and 'u' are same as 'a' and 'p' is same as 'm'.
New spell lists, new spellbooks, new calculation of spell success probability and mana cost.
Spellbooks are quite fire-resistant, but can be burnt by really big fire attacks.
Various items make some spells cheaper to cast. These include wands (which now cast a spell, with normal success rate and reduced cost, rather than creating an effect and using charges as previously), talismans (which only have to be in inventory), and various miscellaneous objects (never artifacts) when wielded.
Sleep, confuse and slow spells are much more likely to work (though possibly not for very long)
Spells do not need to be learnt and cannot be forgotten; you just need the correct spellbook.
Weapons and armor are less likely to be dropped.
To-hit,to-dam and to-AC are shown for pseudo-ID'd items once you wield them.
Slays and brands are indicated by the message when you hit a vulnerable monster.
Some terrain probabilities and pit theme probabilities have changed; some monsters and some attack forms have been tweaked.
Destroying objects does not ID them.
Preserve mode is off by default.
Some options are not allowed (e.g. autoscum on).
The deeper traps are harder to disarm.
Help files updated to some extent.
Reduced breath attenuation (a step back towards V)
Weapons too heavy for you now give to-hit penalties as well as less attacks.
Nexus can no longer swap stats
Monsters up to 10 levels OOD are more common
Gold-thieving monsters now steal items instead, but this is unlikely to work often for the weaker thieves
Changed the names of some weapon and armor types
New message when a monster's attack is blocked by your armor
You now get a warning if many monsters wake up at once (if you have 'disturb_wakeup' set)
Melee weapons and many armors can no longer be destroyed by acid
Failing to disarm a trap is now more likely to set it off
High Stealth gives RDark, high Con gives Slow Digestion
Perception helps recovery from blindness
Body armors now reduce stealth as well as to-Hit.
Heavy boots can reduce your Stealth, heavy helms your Perception.
Ordinary Remove Curse can reduce the penalties on heavily cursed items.
Light armors are not likely to be generated with high plusses, and cannot be enchanted to high plusses. Conversely heavy armors appear well enchanted and can be boosted up a lot.
After pre-release
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Talismans only give 1/4 cost reduction (rounded down) rather than 1/3 as previously.
High elves have wisdom sustained.
Increased XP requirements.
Dungeon doesn't get dangerous as fast initially, but does get more dangerous around 1000'.
Fixed bug where wand activation cost does not display correctly.
Various tweaks to objects file.
Fixed bug with Enchant Weapon returning an armor message.
Chest drops are toned down.
Replaced rings of Speed with Agility.
Readjusted maximum plusses for stat rings and amulets.
You can now 'snipe' (shoot a sleeping opponent for extra damage)
New birth option 'no discovery' - set this to 'true' and you no longer get big random stat changes at DL 2, 4, 6.
New birth option 'easy start' - set this to 'true' and you get more starting kit - but it takes longer to gain XP in the midgame, and your score is reduced greatly.
Talismans and similar items are no longer cumulative with wands.
Wands improve spell failure rates a little.
Spellbooks are more burnable, and wands and talismans can be destroyed by powerful lightning attacks.
Restore Mana potions are less effective than before.
Some item frequencies have been changed.
Characters with low Int will now struggle with more complicated spells.
Spell levels revised.
No single item can drop the mana cost of a spell by more than 4.
When you gain a level, you get an indication of what your stats do.
Player speed is reduced slightly.
Racial hit bonuses are reduced slightly.
Low Perception now reduces light radius.
Character starts with more helpful equipment.
Low Dexterity now sometimes makes missile weapons misfire.
Some changes to Stealth and sleeping. Low stealth is worse than before, high stealth is better.
You cannot use a two-handed weapon with a shield. To compensate, two-handed weapons get more criticals than one-handed.
Hobbits, gnomes and dwarves cannot use two-handed weapons.
Changed good, great, terrible, and artifact drop probs.
Fixed bug where SP do not refill when you gain Wis when descending stairs.
Added some more entries to the notes file.
Added some more uniques.
More objects found in the first few dungeon levels, especially weapons and armor.
After beta
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Bugfix - vampiric draining weapons now produce the correct message.
Various changes to edit files.
Object price is no longer displayed in description.
Reduced starting food.
Starting equipment now depends on race.
Made many monsters extra-vulnerable to sleep and/or confusion. Sleep, confusion and slow are generally slightly more effective.
Made artifacts less common above DL20 and much less common above DL10.
Monsters with RES_NEXUS now cannot be teleported away.
Stat drain is more painful than before when your stat is over 18.
Slightly more items are now found lying around.
If you hang round at too shallow depths for too long, drops eventually become poor.
Removed and rearranged some options (based on changes to V)
Assigned graphic tiles to the new monsters and objects (probably still not ideal, but workable)
Cursed ammo can sometimes be worth using, and also can now be taken off or dropped at will.
After second beta
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Put some options back in that were removed earlier, and changed a couple of defaults.
Options are now displayed properly in the character dump.
You can now run through sand.
Poison still hurts a lot, but wears off quicker than before.
Getting confused will occasionally make you hallucinate for a short period, if you don't have confusion or chaos resistance.
If you try to teleport away a monster that resists nexus, it is not teleported but its energy is drained.
For convenience, wands still give a mana bonus even when you cast the spell from a book.
Glowing stones and glowing jewels can now have special properties.
Various changes to edit files.
Pseudo-id produces 'magic' instead of 'good', 'splendid' instead of 'excellent'
Elemental rings no longer activate for resist element (since they already give immunity)
Fixed bug where text appears on the wrong line during character generation
Plural of 'knife' is 'knives'
After third beta
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Slays on missile weapons do less damage.
Some monster changes.
Raised the level of some spells.
2-handed artefact weapons are now correctly 2-handed!
Artefacts are less common, particularly if you have low Luck.
Monster pits and vaults no longer cause special feelings: only artifacts do.
High Elves now have a big disadvantage when facing the final bosses.
Healing spells and Healing, *Healing* and Life potions give less hp than formerly.
Create Missiles costs more and is less likely to produce great ammo.
Spellcasting is a little less effective if you have low Int/Wis.
After fourth beta
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Now supports UT32 tileset - many thanks to Buzzkill!